Dick Cavett was one of the greatest TV talk show hosts. The former Montauk resident, now 86 and a resident of Ridgefield, Conn., looks back at some of his most remarkable moments. NewsdayTV's Verne Gay reports. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas; The Dick Cavett Shot

A recent visit to Dick Cavett's 1912 Greek Revival mansion in the hills outside Ridgefield, Connecticut, is a visit to the deep past — his own mostly. Vestiges of a long, public life fill the downstairs, and keepsakes crowd every high-gloss antique side table next to each sprawling couch. There's a comfortable, Old World charm to this splendid if slightly faded beauty, which has so many rooms that even the legendary talk-show host living here admits that he hasn't "seen some of them."   

A television set, meanwhile, is nowhere in sight. Cavett, 86, spent most of his professional life on half a dozen networks and hosted nine different programs, with one ("The Dick Cavett Show," ABC, 1969-1975) a must-stop for every actor, author, artist, musician and newsmaker who sought the sort of prestige and gravity that only a Cavett sit-down could confer. 

 "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" may have been TV's biggest late night draw at the time, but Cavett's was far and away the hippest. 

Former heavyweight champions Joe Frazier, left, and Muhammad Ali, right,...

Former heavyweight champions Joe Frazier, left, and Muhammad Ali, right, are shown with television host Dick Cavett during taping of the ABC-TV program, “The Dick Cavett Show,” Jan. 18, 1974 in New York. The boxers were publicizing their scheduled on Jan.28 bout at Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/AG

But Cavett says he doesn't watch a lot of TV these days, and professes amazement when reminded of all that time he spent in front of a camera ("How strange!"). Because of a stroke about three years ago, his focus now is on his health (he's doing fine, he says), which has led him to the woods of Connecticut. Cavett and his wife, Martha Rogers, a business author and management consultant, got the house because it's close to a hospital. Plus, the place reminded them of Tick Hall — Cavett's cherished Montauk retreat where he and first wife, Broadway star Carrie Nye (who died in 2006), spent half a century. 

CAVETT'S TV CAREER

Dick Cavett — who was born Nov. 19, 1936, in Gibbon, Nebraska — has had a long and varied career on TV. Here's a timeline of his talk-shows, the most famous of which was taped at the old Elysee Theatre — then called "Studio TV 15" — on West 58th St., since demolished. 

1960-62 Staff writer, "The Tonight Show," NBC

1962-63 Staff writer, "The Merv Griffin Show," NBC

1963 Staff writer, "The Jerry Lewis Show," ABC, 1963

March 4, 1968-Jan. 24, 1969 Host, "This Morning," ABC interview show and precursor to his late night one.

May 26-Sept. 19, 1969 Host, "The Dick Cavett Show" in ABC prime-time

Dec. 29, 1969-Jan. 1, 1975 "The Dick Cavett Show," the late-night show, which in 1973 became part of the network's late-night bloc called "ABCs Wide World of Entertainment" (and it no longer aired nightly).

Aug. 16-Sept. 6, 1975 Host, "The Dick Cavett Special," CBS, short-run Saturday variety series.

Oct. 10, 1977-Oct. 8, 1982 "The Dick Cavett Show," WNET/13, and PBS, nightly half-hour interview show; Cavett's single-longest series

Sept. 30, 1985-Sep. 23, 1986 Host, "Dick Cavett, USA," weekly talk show, USA Network

Sept. 22-Dec. 30, 1986 "Latenight America," brief post-"Nightline" half-hour on ABC.

April 17, 1989-Jan. 26, 1996 "Tonight on Cavett," CNBC

2006-07 Host of "The Dick Cavett Show," occasional TCM interview show that lead into a movie starring the subject. — VERNE GAY




Then, there was this added benefit: In its early days, Harry Houdini practiced some of his famous underwater escape tricks in the pool out back. For Cavett, a lifelong magician, that was the clincher. 

Talk show host Dick Cavett is shown on the cover...

Talk show host Dick Cavett is shown on the cover of the Oct. 30, 1971 issue of Life Magazine.  Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas

Repeats of Cavett's ABC classic have recently found new audiences on YouTube, streaming service Crackle, and the nostalgia TV network Decades, while a PBS "American Masters"' portrait of his long TV association with Groucho Marx aired in December. (Another retrospective on another favorite guest — Muhammad Ali — aired in 2018.) 

During a recent visit, I spoke with him about all this and more (this interview was edited for length and clarity).

Do you watch any late night TV — or any TV at all these days? 

I'm excited to cut out a lot of current events, and there were two or three [news] shows that all covered the same thing, and it's better to do almost anything more appealing than to hear the same stories three times [but] I watch MSNBC and try never to miss [Stephen] Colbert — we've become friends — but it is hard to talk about the other talk show hosts because you always leave half of them out. I do know them all and don't have any enemies among them, fortunately. 

What are you reading then? 

Getting a lot of good reading done, and for years I've resolved to read some Mark Twain every day. I love it. I don't remember when, but I found a 16 or 17-volume autographed edition that I can dip into any time I want. 

Talk show hosts Dick Cavett and Jimmy Fallon are shown...

Talk show hosts Dick Cavett and Jimmy Fallon are shown in this spread from the Sept. 14, 2009 issue of New York Magazine. The spread is among memorabilia the former talk show host keeps in his Ridgefield, CT on Feb. 9, 2023. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas

This is a long way from Montauk. So why did you leave there after all those years? 

I really loved the place but Montauk is not what it was. It was a sleepy little fishing village then some beautiful people came and they opened a disco and Montaukers felt they'd lost their wonderful Montauk. 

The original Tick Hall was also gone — burned down in 1997? 

It was horrible. We were in New York at the time and got the news over the phone that this great Stanford White house was only a chimney. Lots of books and pictures were lost, too. 

Then there was that 2001 documentary about the rebuilding of it? 

Yeah, the guy who did it [Scott Morris] did a very good job. What was it called? Oh, right, "From the Ashes," although someone sent me a story about it from a paper in Kansas that had the typo "From the Asses." I assume it was a typo. 

Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals, center, is seen...

Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals, center, is seen on the "Dick Cavett Show," with sportscaster Howard Cosell, second from left, and Dick Cavett, in New York, Jan. 20, 1970. Man at far left is unidentified.  Credit: AP/Ron Frehm

Let's get to some personal history. Here's something I never knew about you: Martha told me you were a pommel horse champion in high school?

I was very good at it, and never dreamed I would be the state champion but I was, and have the medal somewhere. It's the only thing I admire about myself. 

Thinking about key influences, I did want to ask about your mother (who died when Cavett was 10).

Her name was Era, but that was short for Erabel — her parents were Welsh — Erabel Richards Cavett. My dad [Alva, both parents were teachers] said, the thing that's worse for her is she won't be able to see how you would develop. But there are lots of others who died not knowing their children's futures.

That other key influence is Nebraska. What is it about the state and late night hosts [Cavett was born and raised here, while Johnny Carson was born in Iowa and also raised there]? 

Yeah, Johnny had great affection for Nebraska, too. People say it's a flat state, but the hell it is. There's an area of Nebraska called the Sand Hills and it is a paradise. 

Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota listens attentively to TV...

Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota listens attentively to TV host Dick Cavett, right, in New York, Aug. 12, 1968 during the taping of Cavett’s television show for ABC-TV.  Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Anonymous

Perhaps the biggest influence of all was Yale (Cavett's alma mater)? 

When I got in, to my amazement, I thought "Jesus, Yale is in New Haven, Connecticut, and that's not very far from New York so I'll see that, too!" I remember the train that I took forever from Nebraska and they finally said the next stop, and it was the name of a popular radio show — Grand Central Station. I sneaked into rehearsals [at the Schubert in New Haven] and saw the premiere performance of "My Fair Lady" directed by Moss Hart … When all the other guys went to Smith or Vassar on the weekends, I went to New York and sneaked into "The Jackie Gleason Show" and "The Garry Moore Show."

And famously, Jack Paar's "Tonight Show." While working at Time magazine as a copy boy, you started writing for him? 

Someone had left the Journal American [a long-defunct New York daily] open to a column on my messy desk, and I saw in bold print the name "Jack Paar" and that he loves his monologue more than anything in life. I said, "my typewriter still works. I'll write something and get it to him." I had learned how to sneak into the show, and after he came out of the bathroom an hour before airtime [I handed him the jokes].

And that led to the Big Break, as a hired gun on the show's writing staff. 

There were four writers, so I was a new kid. which caused a certain amount of tension with one in particular because Jack started using my stuff right away. Jack's head writer was a [jerk], so much so that my great friend and colleague David Lloyd [who wrote for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Cheers," and so much else] told him "your parents owe the world a retraction."

Former talk show host Dick Cavett is shown outside his...

Former talk show host Dick Cavett is shown outside his Ridgefield, CT home on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas

In fact, you were a veteran comedy writer long before talk show stardom, and even had the peculiar talent of being able to make an anagram out of anyone's name.

It became a bit of a curse because it came so readily. I'd realize I'd just forgotten what a guest had been saying because I had anagrammed their name or had started to.

You then wrote for Carson's "Tonight" after Paar left. He genuinely liked you, too, right? 

And I liked him. I do remember one day when I had sloughed off the monologue, and the phone rang — I'll never forget it — and it was Johnny saying, "Richard, I think you're capable of a better monologue than this." I died for a while. I had handed in crap and he was right. I never tried to do that again.

 Dick Cavett  with Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show."

 Dick Cavett  with Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show." Credit: NBC/Everett Collection

It's been said that as talk show hosts, you were the exact opposite of Carson, in that he hated to be off the stage, and you couldn't wait to get off it. True? 

That's true, yeah. I've been quoted saying Johnny Carson was only happy when he was on the air but that's a little exaggerated — he wasn't suicidal the rest of the day. But it's true enough. He did read magazines and was up on a lot of current events so he wouldn't appear dumb. He was a lot smarter than he thought. Do you know about his mother? 

When he got some major award and she told him, "I guess they know what they're doing"? 

Yes. That really hurt him. He even said that on the air. 

Carson lasted 30 years on one show and you lasted nearly 40 years on about nine or so, from ABC to finally TCM.

How strange! 

Talk show host Dick Cavett, third from left, talks during...

Talk show host Dick Cavett, third from left, talks during taping of his network show with, from left, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Cavett, Jerry Rubin, and Rennie Davis, four famous leftist figures of the 1960s, Feb. 6, 1974. A spokesman for ABC television network announced that the taping would not be aired because the program was not "balanced" by opposing views.  Credit: AP/John Lent

Was it one of those cases where you wanted out but they just kept dragging you back in? 

I kept [reading] that "Cavett was on many shows" and I thought, what are they talking about? I guess I had repressed that fact. I did love the first show [on ABC] and after some weeks had gone by realized that you can have fun with this.

Fun indeed. You quickly became the toast of late-night TV. 

There's nothing like the feeling when you're doing a show and it's going great and you just don't want it to end. 

Willie “The Actor” Sutton, second from left, the noted bank...

Willie “The Actor” Sutton, second from left, the noted bank robber released from prison, carries on animated discussion with George McGrath, right, commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections on the "Dick Cavett Show" in New York on Sept. 1, 1970. Man at left is ex-football player turned singer Roosevelt Grier.  Credit: AP/Ron Frehm

Did you ever pay much attention to the ratings? 

I tried never to think about it. I hated it when [columnists] said "Dick Cavett is going to try to knock Johnny Carson off the air." I'd go, "That's not going to happen!" Then they'd often use me as a stick to beat other people like Merv [Griffin] or Johnny. Like "Cavett has John Kenneth Galbraith but Carson has Charo." I hated that. 

Ah, yes, the "i" word — intellectual. The newspapers called you out on that, too.

Oh, God, That word. I learned to loathe it. The stuff [I did] was what I wanted to see although I did get warned. Someone once wrote a column saying "dumb it up, Dick. You're not going to last very long having that person on." I never thought of myself as an intellectual and don't have the makings of being a true one. 

Talk show host Dick Cavett is shown on the cover...

Talk show host Dick Cavett is shown on the cover of the June 7, 1971 issue of Time Magazine. The cover is among memorabilia the former talk show host keeps in his Ridgefield, CT on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas

You did often, however, get around to the biggest of subjects — the war in Vietnam, racism.

How could you not talk about it? 

Nevertheless, you got pushback from ABC, including on the very first show. 

You're talking about that immortal line. I was waiting to be congratulated [by a top network executive] who instead says, "Nobody gives a [expletive] what Muhammad Ali or Gore Vidal think about Vietnam." I knew I was in trouble … I don't know. It never occurred to me that some people would object to it.

Carson rarely if ever did this kind of stuff. 

One night, probably tired of being told that he didn't do relevant things, he said [in reference to George Wallace], "How a racist governor could be a possible candidate for president is scandalous." That was the only time I ever heard him do that and I think he did because he was goaded. Johnny didn't trust himself [because] someone would say, well "Cavett could do that but not Carson." I hated that. 

Host Dick Cavett, right, joins actor Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia...

Host Dick Cavett, right, joins actor Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren on stage of Studio 55 in New York City on Wednesday Sept. 21, 1977. They were taping the WNET-TV program "The Dick Cavett Show" for PBS. Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Anonymous

"The Dick Cavett Show" lasted from 1969 to 1975 but ABC had begun to cut it dramatically back in 1973 (or as the critic John Leonard, put it at the time, "they cut off an arm, and then a leg, and then another arm, until his appearances were so infrequent it was like trying to find Bigfoot somewhere in the Sierras.") Unlike "Tonight," you and your guests debated racism, the Vietnam War, and finally Watergate. Had ABC had enough? Why was it dropped? 

I don't know and I'm not sure anybody does. I don't remember a staggering moment when I was told, "You're canceled." But I did think, that's OK. It takes up all of my time and there's stuff I'd like to be doing. That's a huge difference between [Paar and me]. It didn't bother me not being on. I just thought, gosh, I'm going to work again sometime — fine. I didn't suffer or mourn. I had some kind of freak confidence that something would come along. But I couldn't wait for [the show] to stop because there were so many things I wanted to do and couldn't wait to get to them — although I can't remember what they are now. 

Where to begin! You hosted many more shows, wrote a book or two, did a couple of HBO docuseries and many PBS specials — including "Dick Cavett's Watergate" and "Dick Cavett's Vietnam" — became a columnist for The New York Times, did movie cameos, and...

I keep finding out about movies that I was in and that I didn't know about. "Beetlejuice," "Forrest Gump" … That's one of my problems. I can't remember when anything was except Pearl Harbor.

And I suspect you also just watched the waves roll in on some Hamptons beach after the ABC show wrapped.

I don't seem to have suffered from it. 











 












 

CAVETT'S MOST MEMORABLE INTERVIEWS
Over a career that spanned nearly 40 years and a dozen different shows, Dick Cavett interviewed thousands of people, many more than once. But no two episodes were exactly the same, particularly on his ABC late-night show.

On this there were long-form interviews or cursory ones, debate-style interviews, or those of the blandly promotional plug-and-mug variety ("Do tell me about your latest movie?") There were plenty of newsmaker (and newsmaking) interviews, too.

But what made a Cavett interview so special — besides the frequent focus on current events — was his conversational approach to each, a casual give-and- take that floated well above and beyond the usual set of obligatory TV questions. Inquisitive, never mechanical, his interviews sometimes gave viewers a sense that they were eavesdropping on a pair of old friends — one unburdening, the other listening.

Memorable guests were a who's who of late 20th century culture — from the movies (Laurence Olivier, Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis), the stage (Noël Coward, Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt) and rock music (Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger, Janis Joplin).

Some stars sought to get on — remarkably with nothing to promote — and there were others who refused to. Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant were among them. Cavett now says, "I think if I'd worked at it, I could have gotten both of them," because — like many of his guests — he already knew both casually. "We got along well," he says of Sinatra who may have been reluctant to go on the show because someone told him Cavett was "an intellectual." Grant seems to have declined because — as he told Cavett over the phone — "[viewers] will find out how dumb I am."

 Asked about his favorite interview subject, Cavett is diplomatic: "I don't have a winner that I can announce, but in some ways, Groucho [Marx] meant the most to me." 

There were many other vivid encounters. Here are a few notable ones:

MUHAMMAD ALI

Ali was interviewed by Cavett 14 times, including on the first show taped at the Elysee on March, 4 1968, which led to an unusual off-camera friendship. This first show, in fact, aired in the morning (and was called "This Morning") while the first episode was held a week because an ABC executive thought no viewer would be interested in guests Gore Vidal and Ali talking about the Tet offensive and the Vietnam War. Indeed, Ali was at the center of two wrenching debates — the war and race — and became Cavett's favorite foil to explore both. "Why should I worry about going to ol' jail to free my poor people who have been catching hell here for 400 years," he told Cavett in 1970. No doubt about it — this wasn't Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show."

Cavett now says, "We hit it off in some way that was surprising to me, too. I felt like he was one of my friends, and he spent a night in Montauk [in 1978]. I did have some influence on him [too]. Someone was making a documentary on him, and he was out in Montauk. He was depressed and not cooperating, and they were about to scrap the film, then I came along — he's sitting looking out to sea — and he says 'Hey, Dick Cavett!' …" Cavett says they talked about the film, and Ali's mood improved. The film, he says, "was saved."

KATHARINE HEPBURN

The Oct. 2, 1973, show was Hepburn's first-ever TV interview, with Cavett scooping even Barbara Walters. But that's hardly what made this one so remarkable. Hepburn had arrived at Studio TV-15 the morning of the scheduled taping — an impromptu visit that no one, Cavett included, had expected and, aware that something unusual was about to happen, Cavett got the cameras rolling. Hepburn then demanded that the set décor be changed, reserving most of her ire for the rug ("who can survive that carpet?") Pointing to a small white fence, she said, that'll have to go, too. A stagehand responded that he'd have to unscrew it, to which Hepburn barked, "Don't tell me what's wrong. Fix it." She then decided they should do the interview immediately — and they did, with only the crew as audience. Why did the reclusive Hepburn (who died in 2003) break her TV embargo? In part to promote her new movie "A Delicate Balance." Cavett also says that he'd earlier met Hepburn's close friend, Irene Mayer Selznick, at a party in Montauk and told him she had encouraged Hepburn to do the show. "So I owe it to her, I guess."

LESTER MADDOX

Cavett occasionally turned the show into a "Crossfire"-style debate, and some of those episodes had repercussions. But the Dec. 18, 1970, show with the segregationist governor of Georgia was all about TV-style theatrics. When Cavett told Maddox that his admirers were "bigots," the governor demanded an apology. Cavett then said, "If I called any of your admirers bigots who are not bigots, I apologize." Maddox thought for a moment, then realized that Cavett hadn't really apologized at all. Maddox stormed off the set, but Cavett says he later returned, and the conversation was cordial. "Kind of spoils it, doesn't it?" he says.

MARLON BRANDO

Brando was on the June 12, 1973, show a few months after rejecting his Oscar for "The Godfather," and with him were members of the Cheyenne, Paiute and Lummi tribes to discuss movie portrayals of American Indians. But what happened after made the headlines. After the show, Cavett and Brando left for dinner in Chinatown, when they were intercepted by celebrity photographer Ron Galella. After asking Brando to remove his sunglasses, "he slugged [Galella] right in the face, and I thought, Jesus, you're Marlon Brando, you fool! We gotta get outta here right away.'" Galella lost five teeth and suffered a broken jaw. (He later sued and got $40,000 in a settlement.) The next time he stalked Brando, he wore a football helmet.

GEORGE HARRISON

By embracing rock music, Cavett built a younger audience along with a catalog of particularly memorable interviews, including the Aug. 16, 1969, edition called "The Woodstock Show," which aired the day after the festival and featured some of the performing acts. His interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (Sept. 21, 1971) yielded more headlines (on the Beatles breakup) while the one with George Harrison (Nov. 23, 1971) at first produced crickets. Cavett could only pull monosyllabic answers out of Harrison until he finally warmed him up with, "You know, Yoko had been sitting in the chair you are sitting in …" Harrison jumped up and brushed himself off. They both laughed, and over the next hour or so, Cavett had one of best interviews ever of a former Beatle.

ORSON WELLES

While just 55 years old when he taped the July 7, 1970, show, Welles had already seemed to have filled those years with several lives — each explored over this single-guest episode. The Welles interview supported Cavett's unusual view — for late-night TV, anyway — that a single guest, if compelling enough, could fill up a 90-minute show. Welles easily did that while "The Dick Cavett Show" would ultimately have many single-guest editions over the years, including Gloria Swanson, Ray Charles, Fred Astaire, David Bowie, Louis Armstrong, Richard Pryor, Janis Joplin and Zero Mostel. "On some nights I've had just one guest," said Cavett. "But tonight I have Zero."

— VERNE GAY